Undergraduate

Are you trying to decide what to do with your history major? The History Department
offers an undergraduate Certificate in Public History to help students explore the
field. Required courses include Introduction to Public History and Public History
Internship, and students can select from a variety of courses offered in public history
as well as related fields including Art and Anthropology. Even if you can’t fit the
Certificate into your program plan, students are encouraged to take some of our undergraduate
history courses, including Oral History, Introduction to Archives, Introduction to Museums,
American Architecture and Digital History.

To gain a real-life perspective on working in public history, we encourage undergraduate
students to pursueinternships that are available in a wide range of history organizations. In addition,
the Center for Public History usually has one paid undergraduate research position
and several volunteer internships available every semester.

Several other departments offer useful courses related to public history. The Anthropology
Department offers courses in archaeology, including an archaeological field school; cultural
resource management; an ethnographic field school; laboratory curation methods; and
other class topics relevant to public history. The Art Department offers a variety
of art history courses, such as American Art, and studio courses, such as photography,
which would provide useful skills for public historians.

To learn more about careers in public history, please contactDr. Ann McCleary, the Public History Coordinator.